Conflicting Loyalties in the Balkans

'The 20th century history of the Balkans cannot be understood without the careful analysis of its late- and post-Ottoman complexities of societal life. The marvellously composed volume offers surprising insights into a variety of social spheres, where local actors were exposed to contradicting constraints of multiple, restricted and competing loyalties.' - Professor Karl Kaser, Centre for Southeast European History, University of Graz; 'The historiography of Ottoman rule in the Balkans has successfully projected the image of an oppressive regime, culturally foreign to the region and a hindrance to social and economic development. Reflecting and reproducing the orientalist discourse pervasive in Western thought, this perspective has posited in the last analysis a civilisational contradiction between a stagnant and despotic East and a progressist and liberal West. What is needed are fresh approaches to the study of state-society relations, of everyday life in urban centres, in the core provinces as well as on the periphery of the empire, of the modalities of mental mapping and interregional networking, and of the ways in which intermediary groups influenced the formation of confessional, ethnic and national identities.The papers brought together in this volume address all these issues. They represent a revisionary effort to grasp and illustrate the basically fluid and ambiguous character of power relationships, political loyalties and boundaries of social belonging in late- and post-Ottoman Balkans. Many a nationalist myth is deconstructed in the process, and the veracity of master narratives are disputed convincingly.' - Dr. Fikret Adanir, Professor of History, Sabanci University, Istanbul